Bespoke mental health services
Group Therapy, Employability Skills Programmes, Alternative Therapeutic Education, Graduate Programmes & Individual Therapy.
Group Therapy Services
We provide sessions for: Groups of young people from schools* / Individuals / Families
*Including alternative education providers and other support organisations for vulnerable young people. We often run sessions with our team of Clinical Psychologists when it’s deemed that specialist mental health support would be useful as part of an education programme.
We use Equine Therapy to provide an alternative psychotherapeutic experience and treatment for clients who find it difficult to engage with a therapist or professionals around their mental wellbeing in a conventional way. Our team combines the expertise of Clinical Psychologists with Equine Behaviour Specialists to provide Equine Therapy in a private and confidential facility.
Young people are encouraged to work with the horses in an unstructured way, usually the horses are loose so they can demonstrate their natural behaviours.
The horses naturally respond to the emotional issues people bring to sessions and reflect the emotions of people in their own behaviour. The young people are asked to reflect on the behaviour they see from the horses and their own role in influencing this behaviour.
By projecting their emotions on to the animals, the young people open up about their own emotions and life experiences; giving the mental health staff the opportunity to facilitate therapeutic conversations to help the young person think about their personal challenges, learn to identify and manage their emotions and develop coping strategies for the challenges they face.
Get in touch to discuss what a programme could look like for the young people you work with & we will design something with their needs in mind.
No programme we run is ever the same as another; programmes are designed around the individual needs and challenges of the young people. Our bespoke Horse Therapy programmes are designed to meet the specific needs and goals of the individuals coming to us.
Employability & horsemanship skills education programme
This programme runs for 3 hours a week for 12 weeks.
Our flagship education programme equips young people who are struggling in education with the skills needed to re-engage with education or employment.
During the programme students are taught how to care for and train horses; in learning these skills they gain vital life skills required to successfully engage with education or employment.
Skills gained include: communication, teamwork, confidence, leadership, resilience, time management, literacy & numeracy, presentation and interview skills.
Students compile a portfolio that evidences the skills, experience and knowledge that they gain. This portfolio enables them to gain a QCF accredited qualification in Employability Skills.
On completion of the programme students also receive a personal reference and support to find work experience, volunteering and employment opportunities.
Services for Individuals
The majority of referrals we receive are group referrals from organisations however we do accept referrals from individuals where a group referral isn’t possible.
Individual Therapy Sessions
Therapy sessions are run by mental health clinicians alongside horse specialists and our horses to provide EAGALA standard Equine Therapy. Sessions are conducted on a one to one basis but can be tailored to include family members when deemed beneficial.
Sessions last 1 hour and usually run on a weekly basis. Sessions cost £180 per session. We usually recommend a minimum of 6 sessions.
Alternative Therapeutic Education Provision (Individual or Group)
Young people with more complex mental health needs may be allocated one of our mental health specialist staff members (many of whom are trained counsellors or psychologists). While young people with more educational focused needs may be allocated one of our Equine Specialist coaches who will focus more strongly on skills development and the achievement of qualifications. These sessions can start as one to one with the possibility of transitioning into group sessions if appropriate.
Sessions cost £120 per week and we ask for payment of blocks of 6.
Apprenticeships and Further Education Programmes
We take on new apprentices every 12 18 months. Further Education Programmes are currently in development.
Please do get in touch to express interest or find out more.
Outreach projects in prisons and residential services
Strength and Learning Through Horses offers education and therapy services within prison and residential settings. Taking the horses and a staff team into these settings to run programmes that actively help people in prisons change their lives for the better.
SLTH horses travel to custodial settings in and around London to help young people deal with their emotions, gain new skills and open up new possibilities for their future. The goal of our therapeutic education work with horses in prison environments is to bring a sense of calm, and create social ties by using the horse as a mediator.
Horses hold no bias and help build trust, create a sense of responsibility and ease prisoners’ anger, frustration and isolation in their life in prison.
SLTH works with young men that are dealing with complex mental health issues and learning disabilities at Warren Court; A medium secure in-patient unit operated by Hertfordshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.
Sessions are designed to help them open up to their emotions and gain skills to survive whilst incarcerated and when released. We have developed a bespoke Mentorship element to the programme so that participants can gain new skills and experience from their peers.
At HMP Thameside (operated by SERCO), SLTH works with Young Adults on remand with the aim to reconnect them with in-house rehabilitation and be more able to make positive choices in and outside of prison. Courses run for 10 weeks and combine therapy, learning and meeting equine professionals.
At the end of every course, participants gain a personal reference and accredited qualifications that have enabled them to participate in further training and in-house rehabilitation projects. The course has been shown to positively impact the young men in re engaging with rehabilitative in-house services that they previously avoided. In both settings staff indicated that this was the first time the men had agreed to engage in personal therapeutic work. We are working with HMP Thameside to research and provide academic evidence to demonstrate the effectiveness of equine therapeutic education on young peoples’ lives.
‘As a largely remand prison in SE London serving the courts and housing prisoners serving short sentences and to some extent preparing them for release, HMP Thameside, operated by Serco, has a high number of Young Adults with not enough time left to serve to complete much psychologically-informed intervention.
Working with horses has created the opportunity to help this specific age group (18-25 years) develop emotional awareness, think about vocational possibilities and start meaningful relationships with professional agencies, whilst also perhaps for the first time, setting goals for their future (all typically deficits in Young Adults’ engagement in the Criminal Justice System (CJS)).
This novel approach is being carefully evaluated in prison to much academic interest. We look forward to further embedding our partnership work with Strength and Learning Through Horses and HMP Thameside in the future’.
- Dr Philippa Thody AFBPsS CPsychol ForenPsyD
Head of Psychological Services (HMP Thameside)
How to make a referral:
Stage 1
Please fill in the referral form, this will give us information about the person being referred and an idea of where/if we feel any of our services would be of benefit to them.
Regrettably, due to the volume of referrals we receive, we are unable to discuss referrals via email or phone until we have received the referral form.
Stage 3
You will be invited for an hours assessment session at the stables; this will enable us to more accurately direct the young person to the service most appropriate for them. This is also an opportunity for the young person to get a feel for the stables and our service.
Stage 2
A member of the team will be in touch to arrange a 20 minute phone call to get further information and to arrange a time for the young person to visit the stables for an assessment session.
Stage 4
We will subsequently make an offer of a place within one of our services and book the young person in to regularly attend.